I grew up in the church singing all the old hymns. Amazing Grace, How Great Thou Art, It Is Well, etc. In high school, my youth group sang songs out of a YoungLife song book called
Songs. I learned how to play guitar with this book.
Then my church,
Cherry Hills Community Church, started singing a lot of praise and worship choruses. Little did I know what the future would hold in the area of worship. Our church’s music was a main reason for people to come to our church.
Maybe your experience with worship is similar to mine. Or perhaps you can only worship if you sing the beloved hymns. Either way, this
article argues that modern worship is here to stay.
Modern worship is ten years old. Well, unofficially so. Depends on how you look at it. After all, worship labels like Integrity, Maranatha, and Vineyard have been crafting music for the church for much longer. And by the early '90s, churches had generally embraced contemporary standards like Rick Founds' "Lord, I Lift Your Name on High," Graham Kendrick's "Shine Jesus Shine," and Darlene Zschech's "Shout to the Lord."
It’s hard to believe that many of these “new” worship songs are well over 10 years old! In fact “Lord, I Lift Your Name on High” will be 20 years old in 2009!
So why has modern worship music succeeded? Here’s what Russ Breimeier thinks:
Modern worship didn't succeed because it originated the idea of singing praise to the Lord. It caught on by applying such praise to contemporary music styles. As much as we like to say that worship is all about God, it also needs to evolve and reflect cultural trends in order to connect with the changing culture of the church. That means developing skills in songcraft and arrangement. I'm still waiting for a worship team to develop a great worship album in a hard rock or hip-hop style, much like The Insyderz made two great ska-styled worship albums ten years ago.
There’s those controversial words in worship: style and culture. I must admit, modern worship music fits my style and culture. I still like the hymns but I really like it when they are updated with a contemporary sound. Our church uses
HymnCharts by Don Chapman to help us here. (The site is especially helpful for modern versions of beloved Christmas carols).
So what say you? Do you like modern worship music? Do you believe we should worship in a style that resonates with popular culture? Do you believe modern worship is a good application of Psalm 96:1?
